Franchitti win transforms title battle

More importantly, Franchitti leaves here with the lead in the chamionship battle as
the only other contender, Juan Montoya, crashed into the wall late in the race. Franchitti carries a 9-point advantage into the season finale in two weeks.

Franchitti, starting from the pole, opened up a very comfortable lead early
in the race while the rest of the field fell into place behind him. The
early going saw several drivers retire with various mechanical
difficulties, a trend that would continue throughout the day as only twelve
of twenty seven drivers finished the race.

A quick round of pit stops on lap 20 shuffled the top ten only slightly and
the Team KOOL Green crew put Franchitti back on the track in a hurry. Pit
stops are critical at this temporary circuit as the passing opportunities
are very limited. Adrian Fernandez led the field for a few minutes, the
result of an out of sequence pit stop. The first caution period came about
as a result of a couple of cars stopped on the circuit.

The green flag was shown and almost immediately the yellow flag was thrown
for an incident involving Mark Blundell and Jimmy Vasser. Both drivers got
a push back onto the track and the race continued, with Franchitti back in
the lead. Mark Blundell was involved in another incident, with Naoki
Hattori, that put both drivers out of the race and brought on the third
caution period of the day. It was the perfect opportunity for drivers to
make a second pit stop and Franchitti returned to the circuit still in the
lead. A slight miscue in the Target pits sent Montoya back on the track in
fourth place.

From lap 38 on, the best racing of the day was between Michael Andretti and
Tony Kanaan. They were fighting for seventh place, Kanaan just dogging
Andretti for the second half of the race, but never quite able to complete
the pass.

The most important incident of the day came on lap 48 as Montoya,
unable to negotiate a turn, slammed into a barrier, ending his day. The
full course caution for Montoya set up the last round of pit stops.

Jan Magnussen chose not to pit with the rest of the field and as a result
led the race for several laps. Franchitti, sitting behind Magnussen, grabbed
the lead back from the Dane a few laps later, and never looked back from
that point. He opened up a lead of several seconds over Papis in the
closing moments of the event.

The championship battle will now be determined at the season finale.
Franchitti leads Montoya by nine points leaving Australia with 22 points up
for grabs in two weeks in Fontana, California.